Pastor Tim Remington: Success stories through the Lord

COEUR d'ALENE - Pastor Tim Remington can usually be found within The Altar Church, where echoes of prayers and love for others can frequently be heard throughout the halls. "Love you, brother," is by no means an uncommon endearment on the premises.

As the director of the faith-based Good Samaritan Rehabilitation program since it began 13 years ago, Remington helps people start new lives, free from bad choices and debilitating addictions.

"Mostly family members will call up," Remington said. "Their daughter, their spouse, husband or whoever, 'He's a drunk, he's an addict, he really needs some help.' A lot of them are suicidal, so we do a lot of interventions. We get them from interventions. They bring them in, they sit with their families, they start crying and we take them almost immediately. If the iron's hot, we strike it. We just figure that's God's timing."

Remington was born in California but grew up in Coeur d'Alene. He returned to California after high school and he discovered his relationship with God, met his wife and began cultivating his passion for helping others.

"I used to go into the Santa Ana Riverbeds in California," he said. "I got radically saved in 1981 and at that point, I couldn't help but just go out and talk to people and want to help people and I figured out that the churches were having a hard time doing that. So, I went out into the Santa Ana riverbeds and San Bernardino and just started talking to people, and there was no place for them to go. I started working with a bunch of different people and trying to help people get out of the occult, and I jumped into anything I could do to help."

He served as a chaplain in California and was driven by his calling. He met people who were using, abusing and living on the street and he couldn't stand by any longer.

"My wife and I, in our home, we started taking in people," Remington said. "Our senior pastor at the time, we started bringing in a bunch of people to the church and he didn't really like it, so he came up one day and said, 'Hey, how would you like to basically do this?' I started going to school and started doing it, started loving on the people."

Thus began a life of seeing the good in people, despite their inability to see the good in themselves. Remington, who also serves as the Altar's senior pastor, spent 23 years educating himself on everything from mediation to drug and alcohol counseling. He is a trainer for the Idaho Character Council and has touched more than 1,400 people's lives through the Good Samaritan program, which has 90 beds locally.

But Remington's education is not limited to books and classes. It mainly consists of hands-on work and riding out emotional storms with people until they can finally see the other side.

"I want to make this clear - I'm not a religious person. That, I want everyone to know. I'm not a religious person," Remington said. "I am a Christian, I follow Christ, so if Jesus would have done it, then by George, we need to raise our character to where we're not afraid to do it. We need to get 'er done."

What is "street ministry?"

When I say, 'street ministry,' I mean, you go and talk to the one that's under the bridge, or if you know that there's a prostitute out there and you know she's going to get herself hurt, go do something about it. 'Well, we don't want to have her come to our house because she could steal from us...' So? So she steals from you. So what? Did you help her in the very end? You're going to take a chance. But if you help one, it's worth it. So, we've never worried about that. My wife and I have had one person in over 500 that have stayed with us that ever stole from us and it was our very first person. It was in Southern California, a heroin addict, he ended up stealing money from us, which, the money wasn't the big thing, it's where he found the money in one of my wife's drawers. That's what affected me more than anything.

But that didn't put a bad taste in your mouth?

It did. I almost quit. But then I thought about it for a minute and I thought, 'Boy if I'm that weak, then I shouldn't be doing it anyway, if I'm that weak.' That's when character started coming into the field. Then I knew, if that determines whether I help them or stop helping them, I don't have much character. So that's when I started really striving after God's character.

In this role as pastor, counselor, mediator and everything you do, what are some challenges?

The challenges are always helping people that are very dysfunctional. They don't know what love is, they don't trust anybody, they have no purpose in life. They have no identity in life, they have no confidence to be able to accomplish even if they could, and they have no relationship with Jesus Christ. The hardest thing to do is to establish that in their life, and the only way you can do that is to have a relationship with them. What I tell everybody is, 'Rules without relationship breed rebellion.' You can give them all the rules - you can be the police department, you can be whatever you want, you could be the governor and you could set down whatever rules. Without relationship, you're going to breed rebellion within your organization. Good Sam has 27 staff here and we operate as a family. As far as our paid staff, they're fantastic people. With no relationship with them it breeds rebellion, but once you form a relationship with them, it's like God laying down all the rules to Israel. Israel couldn't do it without Christ, so he sent Christ. Now we can have that relationship and now we can do it. The difference is the relationship. What we concentrate on here is, you go after the relationship and you trust and you gain functionality. Without a relationship, hospitals, they're sterile environments, there's no relationship, you're not even allowed to have relationships with the people. Without a relationship, they're going to go out and do the same thing that they did before they came in.

What are some rewards?

Some of the rewards are, I've got over 1,400 people out there that I love dearly and man, they own a store, they're preachers, they're little evangelists all over the streets and their testimonies are absolutely incredible. Everywhere I go, I go to Denny's, I sit down and the waitress gives me a hug, I go to Tuesday Morning, I go to Walgreens, wherever I go, I see people that have graduated from the program that have lives, their children are back, their families have been restored, and they no longer require everybody supporting them, they are now a part of supporting other people. Great rewards.

Is the Good Samaritan program unique to the area?

We're the only program that's basically like this ... Between Union Gospel Mission, (Friends Church) 24/7 and us, we're the ones here that have faith-based programming. There's one that started in Oregon after us ... One of our graduates from here, down in Idaho Falls, went down there to try to help down there, and it took her a long time but she went through her church and ended up doing it. And I am so proud of her. We've had a lot of branches off of us, people who went through that went and did the same thing. We have one in Oregon, exactly our rules, the whole church came up took everything that we had, went down there and established, obviously called it something different, and did the exact same thing. The girl, Kim, who graduated our program here, they kept sending all their people up from Idaho Falls, and instead of doing that, they opened their own ... she was a tough bird, but she got it. It's exactly our program but they use their church.

When you sit down at the end of the day what does it mean to you to know that you've changed so many lives?

That's a day-to-day thing that I'm just happy about, but realistically, when I put my head on the pillow at night, I go right to sleep but my mind isn't on what we've done, it's always on what we still need to do. You know what, we might have thrown one starfish back in, but there are thousands of others. There are thousands of others. I don't really concentrate on what we've done as much as there's still a lot that needs to be done.

What motivates you?

I can't get away from it. Bottom line. I've tried. It's what I've been called to do. Believe it or not, I've found a gift that I have to always see something positive in people, no matter what, and so I follow it. I can't get away from it. I know drug addicts and alcoholics, I know them. I'm not arrogant about it. I can tell you, I can sit with a drug addict or with an alcoholic, I can tell you what they need and we can help them. Granted, some of them will walk away and do what they want, but I'll tell you what, I've got 1,500 letters from prisons and jails and conversation with people who want in, they want faith-based, because of testimonies all over the place. This month alone, right here, these are letters, testimonies of people who want in. We can't afford to even get them all in. It's hard for us. Juveniles, we want to open up a juvenile facility but health and welfare won't let us do it unless we play by their rules and I'm not going to play by their rules. So now we have juveniles that are committing suicide, they're on drugs and everything because of politics. That's why I never talk to the press, that's why I never drum up business where I don't want it, because we still do things a little bit under the wire as it is just to help.

Do you have any plans to expand or change the program any time soon?

I still want to work with juveniles. We will expand because we have no choice, we will. We have to. There's still thousands of people out there. Heroin's coming back in with opiates, I mean at a rampage. It changes about every 5-7 years what it is, but the bottom line is we have no choice, we have to stay in the game.

Do you have one or two success stories that stand out to you?

I have hundreds of them, absolutely ... On a serious note, you should talk to the people, take your pick. I could pick two off the top of my head because they're here. (One success story) was an absolute drunk, wasting his life away, his testimony will blow you away. Divorced from his wife and two children, got his life turned around, stopped drinking, fell in love with Christ, his marriage got put back together, his two kids came back into his life, they love one another, we helped him start a business, he's one of the best cabinet makers around, the guy is absolutely incredible at woodwork and they're having another little boy coming up. (Another success story) was a meth addict for 17 years. We were rehabbing his girlfriend and he pulled up front, showed me a wad of cash and his pistol, and rolled down his window just to let me know he was watching me because I had his girlfriend. And I said, 'Wow, well, God's watching you. You're going to be coming in too.' He just burned the wheels out of the parking lot, and two weeks later, he came back and just shortly after that gave his life to the Lord ... everybody that walks through that door, I can tell you their stories.

What are your thoughts on criticisms of this program?

I can totally get why some people have programs with any programs like ours, because we think they need to be incarcerated, but one day they're going to be out of incarceration and they're going to be living in your town, so then what are you going to do? And most people have a problem having rehab centers in town, because they don't want to live by them, but yet, their neighborhoods are totally infested with those drug addicts anyway. They're the ones that are stealing everything. I could tell you that when they graduate this particular program, it's going to be very rare that they're ever going to be a menace to society again, because it's character-based.

Do you have any thoughts on the current situation of what's happening with gay marriage in Coeur d'Alene or the state of Idaho?

I am not pleased with any of it because it's so poorly represented in what it really is. We take in a lot of (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and we rehab them. The pain that they go through. We're making a video that we'll put out soon. We've made a couple of them. Testimonies of these particular people and what really goes on in that community ... The pain and agony these people go through, why they are who they are, what society is doing, if we don't understand it, we're going to be paying for it. We don't understand what it does to societies in general, that are like that. If you put them all on an island, one generation and we're all gone, if that's what you want to do. It's funny because I do a lot of counseling to them, and I love them dearly, and I'll help anybody I can help. I'm counseling somebody now, that as far as they want a child and everything, it's like, 'Well, let's sit down and think about this. You have a problem with God's ways, and yet you want a child. But if you want a child, guess what you have to return to have a child? God's ways.' And it really wakes them up because they're so anti-God, so anti-spiritual, religious, they're so anti-God, and I don't know if anybody hasn't loved them, there's been so much dysfunction. It's all around us, it's in our homes and our government. We rehab them right and left. They come in, they have lived at my house, I've had hundreds from that community live with us. They do change their ways, some of them. 98 percent of them change their ways. I do know some that have went back. The video we're putting together is a video of people who have lived that lifestyle and came around, and now their video says, 'This is who I am, this is why I went there, this is the pain that I went through, this is the pain that I felt, and I became angry and mad and upset, and if you tried to even tell me that I wasn't I'd be so mad at you, cuss you out.' If you ever grab a Bible and you stand at one of the parades, all they'll do is they'll cuss you out. You don't have to say anything. It's like, 'I thought this was about tolerance.' I didn't say a word, just standing there with my Bible, just watching. So, they're mad and that tells me something. The madder they get, that means they're passionate. On a linear line, you have anger and you have passion. So when they're angry, it's still on the passion line. Well, why? Because over here they're lovers, and over here they're passionate haters. It's like a man that beats his wife and over here's going, 'I love you, forgive me.' Whoa, on one line. So when we counsel these situations, we tell them, these are passionate people ... that community is very passionate and very aggressive, but you have to ask yourself, 'Why? What has happened?' and if we can get to the heart of that, these people are incredible people. Love them dearly.

What are your aspirations for 5-10 years from now?

To grow to whatever capacity to be able to meet the actual need, and so I believe we (are currently) at 10-20 percent of what's needed, so if we get 20 phone calls, I'm going to be able to get two of those 20 in, 18 of them we just don't have room, finance, nothing. We get no state aid, no federal aid, no tax dollars will go to us at all. Everything's private. We have saved the state of Idaho over $30 million alone, just in incarceration or prison costs, alone.

If you could really change the world, what would you do?

I can't say that I would do anything different. I've been asked to be on the legislature, I've been asked to take different positions by different people and I turn them all down because for me, I think I'm making the biggest dent that I can right where I am.